We Who Are About to Die
by KarotsaMused
Summary: Wartime makes men reckless. Seras has to deal. 42 Days challenge - "First Kiss" and major spoilers for manga vol.6.


A/N: Hellsing belongs to Kohta Hirano - I'm using it without permission and for no profit. 

Done for 42 Days challenge #5 - "First Kiss". Major-ass spoilers for manga volume 6. My first time writing in the Hellsing fandom, and man has it been an interesting ride.

* * *

The night stank of blood and gunpowder, explosions and fires and decaying flesh. A night like that sent adrenaline skyrocketing. A night like that took away all vestiges of 'better sense', made people reckless because they knew they were going to die.

The gurgling cries of the dying, the pounding of booted feet and the yelling of men was only a thin wall away. Even closer, it seemed, was death, rushing headlong toward them. It took all Seras had to keep a level head, to totter somewhere between uncontrolled, feral slaughter and swooning in tears. It took all Seras had to remember the words of her master in her head, to think beyond the scope of her instincts to remain alive for longer than animal sense could carry her.

Until then, the Captain's words in her ear, his accent mangled with the force of his shouting, had been one of the ties that kept her grounded. She could still defer, could still look to him and feel his confidence in her. She relied on him as she relied on her master.

But he was only a man. He was brilliant and animal and just strong enough to shatter. Seras knew the smell of him, the human frailty. For all of the strength in his eye, for all of the steel in his words, for all of the low, wry laughter that comes with the joy of a mercenary, even she could have snapped him in two. Yet when the battle escalated, the softness in him turned to wire and he bit into his cigarettes hard enough to sever the filter from the paper. He bellowed like a god while he could. Even as he told her how weak they were, he and his men.

Men. Mercenaries, trained and skilled, but men. They were weak. Easily fooled by illusion, susceptible to dying and rising again, easily swayed and even more easily broken. They were all liabilities, potential enemies, dissenters and traitors and frightened children facing forces they had, for the majority of their lives, believed to be myths. And then they had all met Seras.

Seras, who was just as bewildered as they were, if anything even more out of her league. She struggled alongside them as they looked to her for a source of power, the clumsy trump card and the master's kid sister. Seras, who fought to keep her head and fought when she lost it. Seras, who wielded guns better than a tank, who was fast enough and strong enough to spear a freak on the end of her gun and fire him into the sky. Seras, who stood tall and unfazed while the blood and flesh rained down around her.

Outside, troops retreated under the Captain's orders. They were losing ground as the invasion escalated. More and more of the freaks came. More and more were coming. The world blazed down around them and hell had settled in for the long haul. The Captain grinned wryly and called for explosives. It sank in, and Seras went rigid when she realized he meant to go out with a bang.

In that instant, he came to her as a weakling with reckless intent, with some sort of plea for life or for pleasure or for the last soft sweetness before he died in flames. He came to her as a man about to die, as a man without a future, as a man with every knowledge of his limits. And he came to her under the guise of public bravado, so that he could come to her at all.

She had obeyed his order unthinkingly. "Seras! Close your eyes!" And she had. She should have known, should have disobeyed, should have backed away but the reaction didn't start until the rough, chapped skin of his lower lip tore against hers.

What jolted through her was not repugnance or disgust, but pure, blind, hot embarrassment and the deep, roiling coil of fear. He had the gall to approach her with no warning, amidst the exploding shells and the screams of the dead, in a tomb that stank of sweat and gunpowder and death. He had the gall to come to her before the rest of his men, to be cheeky and rude and disrespectful. He had the gall to come within centimeters of the fangs of a vampire. Flirting, always flirting, but never close enough to die.

It wasn't even a kiss. She'd moved too quickly even as her mouth closed over his before the scream could come. If it was a kiss, it had lasted less than a heartbeat. She had screamed and moved back and the men around them had chided him. But affectionately. Their fearless leader was fearless then and always.

He had grinned at her, around his cigarette, and told her not to die. Grinned close-eyed so she couldn't see past his face. Then, the grin disappeared and he was again her Captain, forever as powerful, as invincible as her master, there to give orders and be relied upon and trust in her so she could trust in herself. The warlust in him slid home and he welcomed the rush, mangling his accent and bellowing like a god.

She ran, then, to play offense and to get away and lick at her lips for the salt on them. She followed orders and left him behind. In this time, above all others, Seras could not afford to be distracted. Her Captain had ordered her not to die.


End file.
